On my way to Ethiopia, I spent a day in Istanbul, Türkiye, where I tried to cram as much of their wild and wonderful transit system into one crazy day of riding. Here is what resulted.
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Classy Whale – at-least-weekly misadventures with trains and transit!
28 Comments
I know right we have trolley bus .trams and trolley trains ,regular trains light rail
Just from the thumbnail it already seems to be a lot
T3 trams were originally built in the former East Germany/GDR to be more specific! They were built by two different builders and acquired from two different systems from East Germany. And they're not the only remnant of the former East Germany in the Middle East! A pretty mind-blowing fact….the Burj Khalifa was built using recycled 35,000 tonnes of steel from the PALAST DER REPUBLIK! The Palast der Republik was the showcase center of the DDR in East Berlin. Besides parliament, it also had restaurants, a performing arts center, galleries, a bowling alley, and a post office! The Palast was demolished in the 2000s to rebuild the old Stadtschloss. So by visiting the Burj…you're also visiting the Palast.
Those Turkish ice cream men are able to troll people so easily because Turkish ice cream is sticky and doesn't melt! Dondurma (literally means frozen) has the thickening agents salep, a flour made from the root of the early purple orchid, and mastic, a resin that imparts chewiness. It is believed to originate from the city and region of Kahramanmaraş, and hence is also known as Maraş ice cream. The city has been producing its famous dessert for hundreds of years.
I'm glad it's not just me who found Istanbul's transport to be a bit of a mess, albeit a fascinating and exciting one. It feels like there's a story there that I'm missing the details of.
(Also, it's amazing how long the walks are between metro lines, and how long you spend underground even when going up loads of escalators.)
2:00 The metro in Naples has a similar situation in Garibaldi, the connection to Stazione Centrale. You have to walk through an open-air mall to get to the entrance, and then there are so many crisscrossing escalators!
The BRT standard makes no sense. It places too much emphasis on little quirks like fare payment and not enough on actual bus lanes and grade separation
Minneapolis also has Flexity Swifts!
The airport being covered in so many plants may have to do with the fact they destroyed a state-owned forest for it, so they did all that to make up for it! Istanbul has a United Nations of rolling stock with the different nations they're from! The tilework at Şişhane and Yenikapı is incredible! Just as wonderful as the mosaics on the Pyongyang Metro. Funiculaire du Havre in Le Havre is also rubber-tired….the French do love their rubber tires! It first operated with unreliable steam coaches before switching to electric in 1911. Le Havre's funicular originally opened in 1890, but like eighty percent of the city, the funicular was destroyed during the numerous WWII air raids, so they had to rebuild it from scratch.
The unique tower you saw at 14:11 is the Çamlıca Tower, a telecommunications tower. It has a total height of 587 meters (1,926 ft) above sea level and its design was chosen by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality began the Çamlıca Hill TV Radio Tower Idea Project in 2011. Construction started in late 2016 and finished four years later in September 2020. It was inaugurated in May 2021.
I've been on that funicular in Istanbul but I can't remember what it's wheels were made of if indeed I saw them as it's in a tunnel!I liked the ferries and when I was there at least 15 odd years back there was no tunnel twixt Europe and Asia so ferry and bus were the only forms of public transport to get from Europe to Asia.
You packed a ton of transit in a short video. Thanks for sharing.
Caleb actually doing research
Reconsidering life choices. When I have a five hour layover, I … take a nap? Eat some ice cream?
I was almost surprised to see the train pop open in the hotel lobby
Great Video Enjoyed It😊
Four continents in one day is mad – well done!
from what my turkish friend has told me, supposedly the conservitive government is very pro transit due to some werid complicated political things and it's cool.
Great stuff. 🤩
using some of the ice cream man's own tricks on him is a powerful move
I was really impressed with T1, it was always packed when i rode and it came like every 2 mins
Cool video. My daughter got a melodica from my brother for Christmas last year. I feel your pain.
We also have the flexity swift in the twin cities on the blue line but they usually connect three together
A heritage tram that runs in bus lanes. Reminds me of San Francisco. That's so cool they've got those running. Most European transit agencies have a little fleet, but they only bring them out for special occasions.
You are pointing out a planning oversight/disaster at the Istanbul Airport. The metro station is ~300m away from the terminal building. This is extremely inconvenient, and just shows how cars, cabs and buses are still pampered by the government over rail access.
The size of the metro station however is justified, as it plays double duty as the future high speed rail station for Turkiye's YHT trains, that will eventually connect the airport to the rest of the country.
Good info and some mandatory tourist selfies, thanks!
I was so excited for this video. Istanbul is one of the top transit systems I want to visit myself! There's so much to do there. I'm so glad you included the station on the bridge.
An exciting development is the future opening of Tram T6. When Marmaray opened, the old commuter rail line to the European terminal was closed. It's being converted to a tram, which I believe will be opening soon.
BRT rating and standards can be found on Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRT_Standard
A system get points based on all kind of things, so yes, it could be reasonable.
Thanks for the nice video!!
How many 50s did you give to that ice cream??? Even one 50 lira banknote would be enough for that in anywhere
Currently Istanbul has got under construction 400km of new underground Metro lines being constructed,the new Airport metro line last station Gayrettepe will open up to public 19 December 2023 it’s a very modern line the Rxtension to that line Halkali will open end of 2024